


I Don't Dance (we know you can)

by telemachus



Series: Rising-verse [43]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Elf Culture & Customs, Gen, Jealousy, M/M, Suspicion, dance to prove social dominance, dancing with knives, elves are weird, reluctance, shiny knives, weird elves, well Silvan anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6042184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/pseuds/telemachus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silvans have an old custom of dancing with knives to show skill, to show social dominance. </p><p>A moment in Ithilien. (Originally this was part of the Three Houses long-story, but its here on its own since I split that into a series. You don't need to have read the rest to understand this, but it probably helps with understanding Sunrise......).</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Dance (we know you can)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from High School Musical 2. Sorry, it happens.
> 
>  
> 
> .

Caradhil watches his prince dance.

Not – for once – a courting dance. He looks at the dwarf – the old dwarf – beside him, and wonders if those days are gone. It is hard to tell with mortals.

Anyway.

This is a knife dance. Beautiful, graceful, fast.

Deadly.

No other would challenge Legolas at this. He is skilled as no other here is skilled.

He is the prince.

One after another, all those who would show their own skill come forward, take their turn, offer their knives in service.

Not all the elves – some are not knife-users.

Caradhil does not dance.

It is long since he danced.

At first, it was an offering to the fea of one he hurt so, one who died knowing his love was not returned.

Then – then it became part of who he is.

Caradhil.

Always watching.

Never dancing.

He watches, from where he sits on the ground, sprawled, casual and effortlessly graceful as only an elf can be. It is long since he has known that some of these elves look to him, not to their prince, for authority, for guidance – but there are some things to which it is best not to draw attention.

He watches, through half-lidded eyes, and sees – his beautiful prince. No longer shy, no longer afraid, no longer unsure, and he knows that those certainties were not gifted by him; for all his care, they were gifted by this dwarf. This aged mortal.

As ever, the final part of the dance is for Legolas alone.

As ever, he ends on a flourish, one knife raised in salute, one knife casually tossed to his beloved to catch, to show trust, and confidence, and competence to rule.

He has forgot mortality.

He has forgot aging.

Caradhil sees, as though it happens, the knife hit. The blood. The grief, the guilt. Sees his prince fall apart before his eyes, sees the colony descend into guilt, rumour, war with the lands of Erebor and Aglarond.

Fast, as any elf is fast, he moves, he catches the knife out of the air.

The dwarf slumbers on, peacefully.

There is a shocked intake of breath from all the elves.

They are Silvan. 

They know what it means to catch a knife in such a way.

For a moment, Caradhil wonders how to avoid this. There must be words, a gesture, which would turn this aside.

He is too slow.

The handclap starts.

The music changes.

Feeling sick, he rises, and knife in one hand, feeling for his own dagger with the other, he enters the ring.

The dance begins.

Their eyes meet, as they exchange knives, as they carefully do not compete – how can they compete – how can he challenge his prince, his sweet prince? How can he bring him down, make him no more a prince?

Yet – if he does not – if he does not, he will lose all the hard-won authority he has here. If he backs down, he will never again be able to command these elves, and while that is not the least of losses, there is more than that. If he backs down, if he does not rule here, then his prince must rule. His prince will be unable to come and go as he pleases, unable to avoid all work as he has done all these years.

His prince will not be able to live for love alone. He will lose his golden time.

Caradhil cannot deprive his prince of anything he needs or wants, above all he cannot deprive him of love.

He is a Silvan, among Silvans. This dance has meaning.

One of them must win, one must lose. And so the question becomes, which will hurt his prince less – to be no longer a prince, to lose the self that he has been all the long years of his life, or to be no longer free to enjoy his love?

Caradhil knows which he would choose. But then – he has never loved. He is not sure which his prince would choose – and there is no time to think.

They are trapped.

The knives keep moving, and he sees a flicker in Legolas’ eyes – an acknowledgement that this was not planned, this is not rebellion, not meant. An acknowledgement that it matters not.

Meant or otherwise, it is upon them now. 

No way to refuse such an old custom, no way to turn aside.

For an instant, both their gazes flick to the dwarf, the lord Gimli, he who unwittingly caused this – but there is no rescue there. He does not understand, and if he did – who knows what he might expect to happen? What price he might demand?

Caradhil is no fool. He knows the dwarf has never liked him, never trusted him, never fully believed him to be no rival.

His eyes find his prince’s again, and he sees with relief agreement there.

They must find a solution themselves.

The elves around them are gripped, watching intently, and the music becomes faster, inciting anger, inciting battle-joy, encouraging mistakes. But they are both too skilled to be caught out.

A part of Caradhil is rejoicing in the movement, the skill he still has, in dancing one more time – dancing with his prince. But it cannot last. 

This is no peaceful dance, this is a contest. One must win, one must lose.

Caradhil prepares himself to lose all he has. 

To lose such a contest is to be no ruler.

For an instant, he looks at his daughter, and knows his heart is glad that his son is not here this night.

She meets his eyes, and he takes strength from her steady gaze. As he turns with the music, he does not see her catch also Legolas’ eye, does not see her speak, low and fast to Gimli.

“Another knife, by your courtesy elves,” what is his prince saying? “I have two, Caradhil only one – who will throw their knife to him?”

The disloyalty – after all these years, all my service to you, you would pull my daughter into this? – hits him like a stab in the back, almost he staggers with the pain of it.

But – it is not his daughter’s knife that his hand takes out of the air, reaching without conscious thought, reaching fast as elves reach.

It is a throwing axe.

No time for thought, no time to wonder what this means, whether Legolas has used this weapon more than he, whether this is the dwarf ensuring the balance is pushed further out of his favour – as if it were not enough, he thinks, that Legolas has danced regularly all these years, Legolas has a lover to show off for, and above all – that he wishes Legolas to win, not himself. 

But as they continue, it becomes clear that Legolas has no more used an axe than he has. That the throwing of it – or perhaps the mistake that caused all this – has unnerved Legolas more than he thought.

That Legolas desires him to win.

A strange contest it becomes. A battle of wills. Neither of them can bear to win.

One of them has to.

It remains only to be seen whose will is stronger.

 

 

 

Caradhil wrinkles his nose even as he thinks this.

Fool, he tells himself, you know well, Finbonaurion, whose will is stronger, whose will has always been stronger. 

As though it ever made any difference. You will do as he asks, as you always do.

Whatever the dwarf’s meaning in throwing his axe, you will take it, and you will win.

Because that is what your sweet prince would have you do.

Indeed, it has not, by the count of elves, been so very long since Caradhil danced, and before he ceased – he was proficient.

More than proficient.

It is not just his comb, not just his hands and words that have won him – friends – over the years.

Now, Legolas is fast, Legolas is skilled, Legolas is all an elf should be – but Legolas is Sindar. He does not have that wildness, that sense of the woods around them, that awareness of the currents of air, of the pull of the moon, of the heat of the fire.

In the end, it is not so very hard to win.

 

 

 

In the second in which the knives are offered in acknowledgment of his victory, Caradhil feels the eyes of the dwarf on him, and even as he gestures for his prince to rise, as he returns the knives, he sees what he must do.

He waits until Legolas has thrown himself down next to his dwarf, breathing hard, and then – then he spins the axe one more time, easily, as though it is a weapon he knows well, and throws both it and his own dagger.

They bury themselves deep in the ground between the two Lords. Without thinking, the dwarf reaches for his axe, and after a hesitation so small that only an elf would see it – but those watching are all elves – Legolas takes the dagger.

He holds it, and as he does, Caradhil kneels in front of him in his turn,

“It is held at your service, my prince,” he says, “always.”

And their eyes meet, and an understanding is reached.

 

 

 

Nothing outwardly changes. The elves continue to speak of Legolas as lord of Ithilien, continue to act as though Caradhil is lord.

The dwarf continues to make it clear he trusts and likes Caradhil not at all.

Caradhil wonders why it still hurts. It is not as though he expected anything to change after all these years. His prince trusts him, and does not see the unease between them.

His prince is happy.

That should be enough.

Surely.

But for the first time – it is not. Not enough to be always loving, never loved. Not enough to always serve, to give and give, to work with no reward.

Except – it has to be.

He chose this path, long ago, he chose it – and whatever else, Caradhil is not a coward, not one to be forsworn.

And if, somewhere deep inside, something has woken once more, a voice that begins to question the right of Sindar to rule Silvan – Caradhil has many hundreds of years of practice at ignoring it.

Until the time is right.


End file.
